The final concert (entry free of charge) of the winners of the Magnificat “Nikolaus De La Flüe” Piano Competition will be held on 29th January at 6.00 p.m. in the Auditorium of St. Saviour in Jerusalem. The piano competition, held for the thirteenth year running, is open to young Palestinian pianists and all the pianists enrolled in Palestinian schools as well as, naturally, the pupils of the Magnificat Institute, the music school of the Custody of the Holy Land which organizes the event.
The objective is to identify and encourage young musicians who in the near future can embark on a professional career in the field of music, as performers and teachers, in Arab society. In East Jerusalem and in the Palestinian Territories, the applications to enrol in music schools – especially for the piano – are showing continuous growth, but there are few qualified teachers. Studying music, as well as being an educational activity for cultural and social promotion, thus also becomes an interesting opportunity for work. Another aim of the competition is purely educational: to spur on pupils to a greater commitment to study and to begin from a young age to be judged by a jury and the experience the emotion of appearing before an audience. The competition has various categories, depending on the age of the participants and the degree of difficulty of the pieces to be performed. Each entrant will perform one compulsory piece and another of his/her choice of a corresponding difficulty; there is also a category for four hands at the piano.
In addition to the “Nikolaus De La Flüe” Prize, other special prizes will be awarded: the “A.M. Qattan Foundation” Prize for the accompaniment of a choral piece, the “Zia Pina” Prize focused on J.S. Bach (performance of the Prelude and Fugue in B flat minor BWV 866), and the “Compagnia di San Giorgio” Prize for two pianos and choir. The choir this year is the Yasmeen Buds Choir, conducted by Hania Soudah Sabbara, made up of the smallest children of the Magnificat, some of whom will also take part in the competition in their categories.
The jury is made up of musicians who are piano teachers at the conservatoires of their cities and who have already been on the jury of international competitions, as well as being performers in their own right. They are Vincenzo Balzani (Milan, Italy), Antonio Tessoni and Cristina Stella (Vicenza, Italy), Alberto Borello (Cuneo, Italy) and Yuval Cohen (JAMD, Gerusalemme). The president of the jury is the founder and director of the Magnificat Institute, Father Armando Pierucci.
The competition and the jury will follow criteria of transparency and regularity: the president does not have the right of vote, none of the jury members will have pupils in the competition, the result will be the mathematical average of the marks with the exclusion of the highest and lowest mark and the competition will be open to the public (27th January from 9 a.m. and from 3 p.m.; 28th January from 9 a.m.). The prizes will be awarded at the end of the final concert on Sunday 29th January. The prize money amounts to 29,450 shekels, equal to 5,890 euro; the amounts given to the winners are little more than symbolic (at the most 1500 shekels -300 euro- for the winners in each category, double for the special prizes),but some of the winners – when included in the prize or depending on the sponsors – will be invited to give concerts in Europe and in the Holy Land, starting from the concert on Sunday 29th January at 6.00 p.m.
The main sponsor of the competition is the “Friends of the Magnificat” Association of Switzerland, who have dedicated it to Nikolaus De La Flüe, the patron saint of Switzerland and one of the “Fathers of the Nation” of the Swiss Confederation. For the second year running, the “Friends of the Magnificat” have continued the legacy of the Tavasani family of Treviso, who for eleven years supported the “Carlo Tavasani” Piano Competition, in honour of which the Magnificat Institute is about to publish a commemorative book.
FRC
The objective is to identify and encourage young musicians who in the near future can embark on a professional career in the field of music, as performers and teachers, in Arab society. In East Jerusalem and in the Palestinian Territories, the applications to enrol in music schools – especially for the piano – are showing continuous growth, but there are few qualified teachers. Studying music, as well as being an educational activity for cultural and social promotion, thus also becomes an interesting opportunity for work. Another aim of the competition is purely educational: to spur on pupils to a greater commitment to study and to begin from a young age to be judged by a jury and the experience the emotion of appearing before an audience. The competition has various categories, depending on the age of the participants and the degree of difficulty of the pieces to be performed. Each entrant will perform one compulsory piece and another of his/her choice of a corresponding difficulty; there is also a category for four hands at the piano.
In addition to the “Nikolaus De La Flüe” Prize, other special prizes will be awarded: the “A.M. Qattan Foundation” Prize for the accompaniment of a choral piece, the “Zia Pina” Prize focused on J.S. Bach (performance of the Prelude and Fugue in B flat minor BWV 866), and the “Compagnia di San Giorgio” Prize for two pianos and choir. The choir this year is the Yasmeen Buds Choir, conducted by Hania Soudah Sabbara, made up of the smallest children of the Magnificat, some of whom will also take part in the competition in their categories.
The jury is made up of musicians who are piano teachers at the conservatoires of their cities and who have already been on the jury of international competitions, as well as being performers in their own right. They are Vincenzo Balzani (Milan, Italy), Antonio Tessoni and Cristina Stella (Vicenza, Italy), Alberto Borello (Cuneo, Italy) and Yuval Cohen (JAMD, Gerusalemme). The president of the jury is the founder and director of the Magnificat Institute, Father Armando Pierucci.
The competition and the jury will follow criteria of transparency and regularity: the president does not have the right of vote, none of the jury members will have pupils in the competition, the result will be the mathematical average of the marks with the exclusion of the highest and lowest mark and the competition will be open to the public (27th January from 9 a.m. and from 3 p.m.; 28th January from 9 a.m.). The prizes will be awarded at the end of the final concert on Sunday 29th January. The prize money amounts to 29,450 shekels, equal to 5,890 euro; the amounts given to the winners are little more than symbolic (at the most 1500 shekels -300 euro- for the winners in each category, double for the special prizes),but some of the winners – when included in the prize or depending on the sponsors – will be invited to give concerts in Europe and in the Holy Land, starting from the concert on Sunday 29th January at 6.00 p.m.
The main sponsor of the competition is the “Friends of the Magnificat” Association of Switzerland, who have dedicated it to Nikolaus De La Flüe, the patron saint of Switzerland and one of the “Fathers of the Nation” of the Swiss Confederation. For the second year running, the “Friends of the Magnificat” have continued the legacy of the Tavasani family of Treviso, who for eleven years supported the “Carlo Tavasani” Piano Competition, in honour of which the Magnificat Institute is about to publish a commemorative book.
FRC